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4 Feb 2010

Mother taken by cops for opposing pollution of her child's water

people kicked off their land, their water polluted, their human rights taken away....this is the way the world works and remember British politicians virtually always support the powerful and ignore those who suffer for gold, oil, coal, etc.

Crisanta Perez, a Maya Mam villager from the community of Agel, in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, Guatemala, has been arrested by police for an outstanding arrest warrant that was laid against her in 2008, reports the maritimes-guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS).

Crisanta had been in hiding for the past several months, due to several threats on her life. She returned to her home in Agel just a few weeks ago, to give birth.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

A community leader, Crisanta Perez is one of the “Goldcorp 8″, a group of Eight Mayan Women who were charged in 2008 for standing up to the Canadian mining company Goldcorp.

On June 10, 2008, Crisanta “provoked a short circuit on the electric lines which hang above her home”, explains Jaimie Rodriguez in one of several photo essays about Goldcorp’s now-infamous Marlin gold mine, which sits adjacent to Agel and two other Maya communities.

Crisanta’s action caused a power failure at the mine, which temporarily interrupted its operation.

According to Crisanta, the company never asked for her permission to set up the power lines. “They simply put them there,” she says.

Soon after she cut the power, ultimately a response to Goldcorp’s continued refusal to act responsibly, about 150 Mayas gathered in support of Crisanta and declared themselves in a “permanent state of alert.”

A few days later, “representatives from the mine arrived along with 35 national police officers and private security guards from the company. As the gathered women did not allow engineers to enter the property, the security forces began to violently threaten the women and children with tear gas. The local women continued their resistance and created a human chain that the police was not able to break,” Rodriguez explains.

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I am a green activist, writer and economist. Three kids, live in Winkfield. Live low impact on the land in my trailer, I am a Green Party local councillor. Ecosocialist and fan of Elinor Ostrom, have worked closely with the Peruvian indigenous leader Hugo Blanco to fight.